Mountain Trip Part 3

After saying good-bye to Grace and her awesome family, we set out for Cherokee, NC. Despite the potential for car sickness and all the ear-popping, I absolutely love driving in the mountains. You never know what you're going to see. Below are some highlights from this excursion.

Ed wanted to stay here....but with such a tight vacation budget, I didn't think it a good plan. So we stayed at the good ole Holiday Inn...and got a free breakfast. No--not a continental breakfast. I'm talking eggs, bacon, sausage, potatoes and gravy, grits, almost anything you could want on the breakfast buffet. So if you plan to go to Cherokee, I highly recommend the Holiday Inn...good rates, clean rooms and good free food!

When we first got there, Matthew was ALL about the Indians....wanting to see them and asking questions about them. It got embarrassing after a while (because he doesn't have a quiet voice). So we took him to meet some and dress like them!

Because we got there so late, we didn't get to do much the first day, so we got up the next morning and toured the Cherokee Indian Village. I thought the boys would be bored, but they were truly interested and seemed to like it. Below is a collage of the highlights. (Click on collage to see larger image.)

After lunch, we went to Santa Land. Not exactly Cherokee themed, but the kids liked it. Then we just souvenir shopped and drove around to see the sites. Nice mini-trip!

Loved getting a July "Santa photo" with Matthew. He loved seeing the Macaws. The red one is named Skittles. The blue one is named Paco. Beautiful birds that talked. So sweet.

The fish in the photo were chasing our peddle boat. So funny...they chased everyone's boat, begging to be fed!

Then of course I got photos of the bears, real and painted ones. Ya know how Aiken, SC has painted horse sculptures throughout town? Cherokee has some amazing bear sculptures, and I didn't get to photograph near as many as I wanted. Maybe next time! Santa land also had real bears (which I kind of felt sorry for, as they were in a chain-link cage). Ed and the boys rode the Ferris wheel and carousel, while we waited on the Rudi-Coaster to be repaired. Never happened! All in all, we had fun though, and I enjoyed using my camera throughout the trip. Check out this "artsy" shot!

Final leg of the excursion in tomorrow's post.